6-24-17

We had perfect sleeping weather and a close but quiet campground and we both woke up before my 7:00 alarm. We had some time to kill because we decided to ship some things home and the UPS store didn't open until 9:00 so we took our time showering, eating breakfast and breaking down the tent. We shipped home extra clothes that we were not wearing, a few books, a couple things from our kitchen box and a few odds and ends. 

Next we headed to the Capitol building. There was some kind of festival going on downtown but we managed to get a parking space close before the crowd got in. It was another beautiful building with lots of marble and a huge flag hanging in the rotunda. We did our self guiding tour and sat in the galleries. It occurred to us that of the now 40 capitols we have been to, there has never once been a session going on and we would really like to go to one. 

We had a long drive ahead of us to get to Nez Perce National Historic Site. About 45 minutes of it was on the interstate and then we turned off onto state highway 95. I would say about 80% of our drivingbhas been on these two Lane roads through farm/ranch land and tiny towns. One of those towns had a population of 30 people.  A few days ago, we went through the town of Arco which was the first town powered completed by atomic power (or so the sign said). 

The boring drive across Idaho the day before redeemed itself today. In the Payette National Forest, we encountered a curvy road over the mountains with lodge pole pines that met up with the Little Salmon River and proceeded through a beautiful canyon while we crisscrossed the river over and over. The area is called Hell's Canyon but it was quite stunning. We passed through a town called Riggins which must have been over run with more than 1000 people who were fishing for Chinook released from the hatchery. This opened out to rolling fields of corn and wheat. It was a really lovely drive. 

After 5 hours and gaining an hour into pacific time, we arrived at the visitor center. I had not realized that the Nez Perce were the same tribe that were at the Big Hole National Battlefield that we visited in Montana 7 years ago. The park film and  exhibits were really good and Lorelei worked her junior ranger. 

In our conversation with the park ranger he asked where we were headed and when I told him he suggested a Washington state park site just a few miles from our campground. So we passed our campground after about an hour and drove 8 more miles (2 of it on a dirt road) to get to Palouse Falls. This is a 200 foot horseshoe shaped water fall that you can hike and camp around. We hiked up to see it and had a little fun with our shadows on the Canyon then went back to the campground which was located at the marina at a place called Lyons Ferry. 

We setup camp, planned out our route for the next few days in our new Washington map and then the campground was showing Cars on an inflatable movie screen and we watched that. There is no cell phone service but I managed to get a few work emails sent with the slow wifi. Luckily there are no mosquitos here and we got to enjoy being outside in the dark. About 10:30 we went to bed and the perfect combination of darkness and temperature had us falling asleep without our rainfly and gazing at the stars and the Milky Way while the guy in the tent next to us sawed logs.